Unquantifiable
by Della19
Summary: In his report he is typically precise. 7.38 standard hours. 442.8 minutes. 26,573.0 seconds. This is the duration that his Captain was dead. And yet, somehow, with the lingering memory of cold glass and wet cheeks, that time is unquantifiable. Many things about James Tiberius Kirk are somehow thus, Spock has come to learn. Kirk/Spock, Into Darkness Spoilers.


Unquantifiable

Summary: In his report he is typically precise. 7.38 standard hours. 442.8 minutes. 26,573.0 seconds. This is the duration that his Captain was dead. And yet, somehow, with the lingering memory of cold glass and wet cheeks, that time is unquantifiable. Many things about James Tiberius Kirk are somehow thus, Spock has come to learn. He thinks he will never become accustomed to it, but concedes also that this is not entirely a negative. Spock/Kirk, Into Darkness Spoilers.

Disclaimer: Not, not mine. But oh, is wishing made it so.

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_"I have measured out my life with coffee spoons."_ – T.S Elliot, _The Love Song of J. Alfred Prufrock_

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In his report he is typically precise. 7.38 standard hours. 442.8 minutes. 26,573.0 seconds.

This is the duration that his Captain was dead.

Time, easily measured, even to those not in possession of a Vulcan's ultra-precise sense of time-keeping, no more complicated than simple addition. Spock, if asked, could have calculated these numbers by the age of 1.2 Earth years, to as many decimal points as requested. And yet, somehow, with the lingering memory of cold plexi and wet cheeks, that time is…unquantifiable.

This is the time that _Jim_ was dead.

It is a distinction that logic says that should not matter.

It does.

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Vulcan's, as young children, are taught that all things in life can be measured, can be identified and quantified and controlled. That precision and accuracy and dedication allow for all things to be described in the most exact of ways. Spock was an excellent student, and he took his lessons on this as truth.

And then Jim dies before his eyes, and his de-education begins.

It happens like this.

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31.1 seconds.

This is the time it takes Spock to reach engineering after he hears Mr. Scott's forbidding entreaty. He runs. There is no evidence to suggest that he should, no data to indicate that there is anything wrong with the Captain. Only the _nehau_, the foreboding feeling in his gut, deep and strange and emotional, that reminds him that a so proclaimed miracle has occurred, and he does not know the location of the Captain, and likelihood that these two data points are correlated.

So he runs.

He is not quick enough.

2.78 minutes. 166.8 seconds. This is how long Spock has with his Captain before his breath stills, before his eyes dim and his hand, shaped in the symbol of Spock's people falls limply from the plexi of the radiation shield that separates them.

This is how long Spock had with the man whom saved him from certain death at the risk of his own career, the man whom he proclaimed _friend_ before he died.

This is how long he had with _Jim_.

It was not enough time.

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Humanity is characteristically imprecise with their use of many words, and friend is no exception. Friend, to humans, has variable and much varied definitions. A stranger is a friend, a lover is a friend, an inanimate object or an alcoholic liquid are friends.

Vulcan's, perhaps unsurprising, are much more precise.

In Vulcan there is _katravahsu_, one whom you associate with. _Telansu_, one whom you share a close relationship with. _Fainusu_, one who is known to you, in all ways. _Ne ki'ne_, one whom is a trusted warrior to bring with you into battle.

And then there is _t'hy'la_. One who is friend, brother and lover.

Soulmate.

In naming Jim friend, even Spock does not know of which definition he was referring to, for Jim, he realizes numbly, was deserving of all of them. It is, by Vulcan standards, an unacceptable lack of precision.

Jim is dead.

Spock, who has strove all of his life to be more Vulcan, finds that in this moment, he could not care less about Vulcan standards. They have failed him.

The ship is out danger; the crew is saved, from almost certain destruction. This is a logically desirably outcome. The needs of the many outweigh the needs of the few. This too is a Vulcan standard.

Jim, his Captain, his _friend_, is dead.

_No_, he thinks helpless, feeling not the cold plexi still beneath his fingers or tears on his cheeks, his breath somehow trapped in his lungs, his heart a heavy weight in his abdomen, _they do not_.

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_It's a miracle_, they said, when the ship had stopped its deadly fall.

_I do not believe in miracles_, Spock had replied, as logic demands.

Jim is dead, and now he has proof.

There are no miracles here.

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_With great cost_, his Elder self-had said regarding Khan's defeat, and Spock had been unsatisfied by the vagueness that answer presented. What cost could be so great it could not be measured, defined, quantified?

He understands now.

Jim has been dead for 5.2 minutes.

How do you measure the death of a friend, how do you quantify being denied every laugh, every tear, every joy and every sorrow yet to come, now forever beyond reach? You cannot.

The price they have paid has no name, no measure. It is limitless.

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The anger, the sheer, unadulterated rage that consumes him has no measure either.

But it does have a name.

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_Khan._

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Spock beams down, begins his chase. Jim, his friend is dead, and Khan, his murderer, is still alive.

This, Spock decides, the primal rage of his people burning in his veins, is a mathematical inequality that needs to be rectified.

He was not able to put his hands on Jim as he died.

Khan will not suffer the same problem.

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He is numb to the raw ache of his hands, from using them to try and bring Khan the pain he has wrought upon Spock. His rage, his devastation blind him and deafen him to anything more than Khan, finally laid low by Spock, and his instincts, base and primal howl for his death at Spock's hands. And yet, he hears this. "We need him alive. It's our only chance to save _Kirk_," Nyota entreats desperately, a studied emphasis on the last, vitally important word, knowing, for she has always seen him clearly, it is the only thing that will be able to halt him.

And it does, this single, all too tempting premise. Use Khan to save Jim.

Jim, who has been dead for 17.1 minutes.

Hope. Human, fallible, imprecise, against all logic.

Unquantifiable.

Jim is dead, and Khan has killed him, and Khan should die. There is a cold, brutal logic to this.

He lays Khan out with a single blow, but does not kill him.

Hope.

Jim is dead. It is all he has left.

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Khan lives.

So does Jim.

There is not a correlation between these two points. There is _causation_. Khan lives _because_ Jim does, this Spock can assure. Perhaps it is not logical, but it is truth.

Jim was dead, and now he lives.

Logic has little place here.

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11.3 minutes. 667.2 seconds. This is the time since Dr. McCoy has injected the synthesized serum of Khan's blood into Jim – the time that Jim has been alive again. The time since his heart, thought to be halted indefinitely, has begun to beat again. The time since his chest, once so terribly still, has risen and sank rhythmically with the indications of life. Spock knows this because this is the time he has watched all of these things, unable to make himself leave, for fear that if he does, Jim might cease in these actions once again.

It is also the time that Spock has been able to _breathe_ again, without feeling as if he was trying to do so underwater. There is, Spock admits readily, causation between these two points as well.

He sits by Jim's bed, and waits for the sight of those blue eyes, a sentinel against all that would harm him.

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Nyota finds him there, at Jim's side and watches, before she kisses him, softly, on the corner of his mouth, her lovely eyes sad but understanding.

She has always seen him clearly.

The kiss tastes of goodbye.

This too is causation.

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13.4 days. This is how long it takes for Jim to wake. This is how long Spock waits, to see if he _will_ wake, and further still, if he will be undamaged when he does. He cannot stay beside Jim's beside the entire time – there are debriefings and meetings, and ships business that Spock, as the acting Captain of the Enterprise must be in attendance of, but all of his unaccounted for minutes and seconds and hours are spent at Jim's side, waiting for his friend to return to him.

And then, 13.4 days after Spock got that terrible hail from Mr. Scott, Jim does – opens his too blue eyes and speaks, banters with Dr. McCoy and then finally turns those eyes towards Spock, and Spock feels his heart do one slow stutter in his abdomen at the sight.

Jim is alive, and Jim is _Jim_, and Spock? Spock thinks that for the first time in his life, he might be truly, simply, _happy_.

"You saved my life," Jim says, somehow both a simple statement of fact and a personal conveyance of gratitude and affection, layered as human speech so often is, and Spock thinks many things in response, and says only few of them, because emotion is still a language he is not fluent in.

_I think perhaps_, he does not say, _I saved my own as well_.

Jim smiles none-the-less and Spock lets himself feel the strange warm fluttering - decidingly unbecoming of his Vulcan control - that has blossomed deep in the core of him at the sight.

It has been 13.4 days, and Jim is alive and well, and smiling that eyes bright smile he has, at Spock. The cause, he decides, is sufficient.

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7, 443, 26,573. 31, 3, 167. 5, 17, 11. 667, 13. These are the numbers associated with Jim's death. Rounded to their nearest whole number, they are all prime numbers.

In the end, they are only divisible by him.

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"Stay," Jim entreats to him softly, after Dr. McCoy has left, when Spock tries to force himself to leave as well, so as not to overstay his welcome, "Stay with me." And it is said so hopefully, such a wonderful, hesitant and yet sincere entreaty, accompanied blue eyes bright and oh so warm with an emotion that Spock knows not how to name. And yet, it is a most effective one, for despite the fact that he has obligations elsewhere – meetings and ship's business - he is helpless to so anything other than what has been asked of him.

They can wait. This cannot.

He sits, and slowly draws Jim's hand into his own, and feels _Jim_, the thrum of him brush against his shields, and at Jim's smile he lowers them, and lets himself become immersed in this, this simple feeling.

He has no desire to quantify this.

He stays with Jim.

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Later, years later, when he has finally learned that love and emotion cannot be measured in minutes and seconds alone - that these are that which is unquantifiable - he will realize that he never left, and deem it logical.

Two, after all, is a prime number as well.

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FIN

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A/N: Ah, Into Darkness. How can I not write fanfiction about you? You took the best Original K/S moment and you remixed it. JJ Abrams is making canon fanfiction (or maybe making fanfiction canon, whatever) and I love it. Ah, it feels nice to be writing my OTP once again – I missed my boys. Seriously though, because I loved Into Darkness so much, but I hope the Wrath of Khan writers got a writing credit or something, cause there's inspiration and then there's imitation. And in this case, both were awesome. As always, reviews and constructive criticism are welcome.


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